TATUMS – Many people in southern Oklahoma will go their entire lives without setting foot in Tatums, established in 1895 by the descendants of Africans once enslaved by Chickasaws. The small town in rural Carter County is several miles from Interstate 35 and even further from bigger towns like Duncan or Ardmore but plays an equally important role for some.
While the town has rarely been home to more than a few hundred people, Tatums has been the subject of extensive research for historians and anthropologists for decades. The story of Tatums is filled with unique people and events but some that live there fear the story could end too easily.
“It’s a unique little town. I hate to say this, but it’s going to die if the people don’t come together and start doing some type of investment back into the town,” said resident Liz Jenkins-Austin.
Jenkins-Austin lives in the former home of Jewel Varner, a longtime educator who wrote her doctoral dissertation about the Freedmen’s town. Along with attempts to designate the home a historical landmark, Jenkins-Austin also wrote about Tatums for her Master’s thesis.
But no amount of academic research could match some of the sources Jenkins-Austin has developed.
“A lot of things we learned, we learned through our grandparents and people that actually lived there,” she said.
Ean McCants, originally from Oklahoma City, moved to Atlanta and has plans to become the first descendant of Chickasaw Freedmen to teach about his ancestors in a college setting. Like his cousin Jenkins-Austin, McCants has learned about Tatums from family.
He can’t count the number of times he’s visited but said that he meets new family members nearly every time. The 24-year-old was able to speak candidly about the uncomfortable details of his origins – enslaved Africans, Chickasaws removed from their Mississippi homes and at least one rebellious Creek ancestor in Alabama – that extends into controversy even today.
But for all of the wounds of the past and present, McCants also recognizes a privilege not shared by many Black people in America: clear genealogical records. Thanks to the Dawes Rolls, McCants and other descendants of Africans enslaved by some Native American tribes can better glean their own history.
“I can trace my family back to the 1600s, pretty much. I know my Chickasaw ancestors’ names in Chickasaw. That’s very special,” he said.
As the town’s history becomes better documented with each student or interested neighbor, its future become more unclear. Those born and raised in the area have either moved away or passed on. Jenkins-Austin said only two residents born in Tatums remain in town and both are over 80 years old.
Jenkins-Austin still volunteers around town, especially with the Red Cross, to help her elderly neighbors. With no nearby jobs to support a household, groceries about 15 miles away and a post office open two hours per day, she knows exactly why young people find it difficult to stay.
“There’s no jobs in the area and that’s why the younger people have left,” she said.
Even McCants can acknowledge better opportunities for him were hundreds of miles away and that the challenges faced by Tatums today aren’t exceptionally unique.
“This is not just a Black town problem, this is an Oklahoma problem. Oklahoma has a huge brain drain,” he said.
Still, he remains part of a project to preserve a Murray County cemetery where his ancestors’ bodies currently rest. As he gets closer to completing his education to teach others about Tatums and the Chickasaw Freedmen, the history of it all isn’t exclusively in the past.
Because the town is still there and home to over 100 people.
“My ancestors have lived in or around and walked that land for centuries and you can feel it. It feels old.”